Diversity Isn't Affirmative Action

Civil rights advocates say "affirmative action" still is needed for U.S. workers.

The Republican Congress has declared war on it.

And, management prefers to talk about "diversity."

Yet, affirmative action, as it applies to employment, and diversity are different.

Legally, affirmative action is a mandate for corporations who have contracts with federal, state and local government agencies to hire and promote women and minorities to make up for years of exclusion and to remedy racism and sexism.

For businesses not covered by law, affirmative action describes efforts to acheive employment equity and to integrate the work force.

Diversity describes changes in the composition of the labor force projected by 2000, in which white men will make up only 10 percent of all new hires. The work force will be composed largely of women and minorities.

Managing diversity, which includes white men, means allowing all workers to acheive their potential. There is no legal requirement to implement it.

Despite 30 years of federal affirmative action laws, white males still dominate managerial and executive ranks. Yet affirmative action is under attack in the conservative Congress.

"So much has changed in the areas of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity . . . that it is important to realize that many of the goals that were set (by Executive Order 11246) in the 1960s still have not been realized," said Gazella Summitt, past president of the American Association for Affirmative Action, based in Indianapolis.

Affirmative action still is in effect but diversity is the buzzword of choice.

"Affirmative action continues to play a key role and to be an important topic in corporate America," said Jeffrey E. Christian of Christian & Timbers, an executive search firm based in Cleveland. "However, there is a growing trend to embrace a philosophy that values the need for diversity at all levels among their employees."

Acknowledging that "many companies have not done a great job with affirmative action and there still is a need for it," Lawrence M. Baytos, president of Diversity Implementation Group, a management consulting firm in Naperville, prefers to emphasize diversity in his consulting company, which opened in January.

Under pressure of affirmative action laws, many firms "did a minimal level of hiring, didn't develop people and didn't try to advance them as quickly as majority group employees," said Baytos, who has an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and is the former senior vice president for human resources at Quaker Oats Co. He is the author of "Designing and Implementing Successful Diversity Programs," published by Prentice Hall and the Society for Human Resource Management.

"The results are high turnover (of minorities and women), which is extremely expensive, and minority employees clustered at lower levels of the corporate pyramid."

Baytos says corporations are see diversity as a business issue, a competitive necessity in a changing marketplace-with no legal force."

But diversity has no teeth in it, so the concern is that affirmative action is being diluted by it.

"Affirmative action is needed to assure that at least the major players who do business with the government are fulfilling mandated requirements," said Patricia Lara Garza, executive director of the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement in Chicago. "It makes up for years of exclusion and discrimination in hiring, especially among women and minority populations. It produces results."

Garza, who has a master's degree in social work from the University of Illinois/Chicago, also sees the importance of diversity. "It's a way to promote and value the differences among workers," she said. "It's a movement that celebrates that which is unique and different in each of us."

However, she adds: "Diversity is not a government mandate. It doesn't have the compelling force of affirmative action."

Carol Kleiman's columns appear in the Tribune on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday.